The honours just keep coming in for Cassie Sharpe.
The Canadian Freestyle Ski Association (CFSA) announced their inaugural Athlete Performance Awards on May 28 in Vancouver, and the Comox halfpipe competitor was named the Female High Performance Rookie of the Year.
“In her first season on the national team, Sharpe won, among other things, a FIS World Championship silver medal and a FIS World Cup,” the CFSA noted in a press release.
The awards are a result of the renewed commitment to high performance made possible by the support given to the team by Michael Wekerle thanks to their appearance on Dragons’ Den.
“We have the best team in the world and our athletes deserve to be recognized at the end of the season for all their hard work,” said Bruce Robinson, chief executive officer of the CFSA. “The CFSA is not only recognizing the top female and male athletes, but is recognizing athletes who have achieved outstanding individual performances within their specific discipline as well as the male and female athletes who had an outstanding year of competition as a new member of the national ski team.
“The diversity of the awards enables the CFSA to publicly acknowledge many talented athletes on an annual basis. We hope that this will give every athlete in our program today, and in the future, another reason to keep dedicating themselves to freestyle skiing.”
Mikaël Kingsbury and Justine Dufour-Lapointe won the Male and Female CFSA Athlete of the Year Awards, respectively.
A Most Outstanding Performance of the Year Award was given it to each freestyle discipline on the team.
Simon d’Artois (Whistler, B.C.) won the halfpipe award for his gold medal victory in January at the Winter X Games in Aspen to become the first Canadian man to win the title.
Aerialist Mélissa Corbo (Blainville, QC) won for her bronze medal performance in January at the FIS World Cup in Lake Placid. The third place finish marked the first time that a Canadian woman stood on the podium since 2008.
Alex Bellemare (Saint-Boniface, QC) was given the slopestyle award for his performance at the X Games in January that earned him a bronze medal.
The mogul performance of the year was given to Kingsbury, Philippe Marquis (Quebec City, QC) and Marc-Antoine Gagnon (Terrebone, QC) for their historic dual moguls podium sweep at the 2015 FIS World Championships in January. The sweep was the first one for the Canadian program and the first one in dual moguls history.
The Male High Performance Rookie of the Year Award went to aerialist Lewis Irving (Quebec City, QC) who was crowned the Nor-Am champion this season.
The awards were voted on by a committee consisting of CFSA staff and members of the High Performance team.
